Justice and Security Bill [Lords]

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Hywel Francis

Monday 4th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Slaughter]

I am indeed, Mr Deputy Speaker.

The point I was trying to encapsulate is that there is so much in the Bill that is new and highly controversial that it seems utterly right that we should not have to wait five years or have only a single process of review, and that we should have instead a process of renewal. That is to say that this House and the other place should have the opportunity to reject the Bill once they have seen it in operation.

[Dr Francis]

May I place on record the support of the Joint Committee on Human Rights for my hon. Friend’s amendment? It is extremely important and one that is part of my Committee’s most recent report.

[Mr Slaughter]

I am most grateful, and I think the whole House is grateful for the Joint Committee’s work: it has taken a forensic interest, produced three substantive reports and taken a huge amount of evidence. We would all be a lot poorer in discussing this matter were it not for its role.

The Joint Committee felt able to summarise the need for the annual renewal provision in one paragraph because it had highlighted the difficulties that arose from the rejection of the Wiley balance, the rejection of last resort, the rejection of “PII first”, and the rejection of the Wiley balance in the CMP, a matter that I believe we will have an opportunity to vote on when we press amendment 38 to a Division at the end of the debate. That has not been discussed at any length and all I will say is, as a paragraph of the Joint Committee’s report makes clear,

“The Special Advocates…consider that once a CMP is ordered, and the court has to decide which documents will be “open”…and which “closed”, the court should be required to perform the Wiley balance between national security on the one hand and the fair and open administration of justice on the other.”

That is a point that the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) constantly rejects in what appears to be a wilful misunderstanding of the way the PII process works, or indeed the way that the Wiley balance works. All of the proposals, which have had great support from the Joint Committee, the other place, many parties in this House and a substantial number of senior Members on the Government Benches, are dismissed out of hand by the Government in the belief that the new formulation, the revised new formulation or the revised, revised new formulation is good enough. For all those reasons, it will be necessary to have the annual review process.

Finally, not only are there issues with which we are now familiar, some of which we have just voted on, but the Government have slipped in new proposals. The hon. Member for Cambridge mentioned amendment 28. We believe, notwithstanding the Government’s reassurances, that the aim is to destroy the use of confidentiality rings. Government amendment 47, which we believe allows—[Interruption.] The Government know what their own amendment says. There are serious, additional clauses, which I am sure will be raised in the other place. There has not been the opportunity to raise them on the Floor of the House this afternoon. They have been introduced on Report and not properly debated.